


Next Right Thing

by eyesonly



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, FinnPoe if you don't, Fix-It of Sorts, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Injured Poe Dameron, M/M, Okay so OT3 if you squint and want it, Only death is canon from movie, Poe Dameron Hurts So Prettily, Poe Dameron Needs A Hug, Poe is not doing well, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Finn (Star Wars), Protective Rey (Star Wars), TRoS Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-26 08:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21966109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eyesonly/pseuds/eyesonly
Summary: ~TROS Spoilers~This is a fix-it, if your fix-it means you want more heartache and sadness? After TROS, Poe may not be doing all that well. Sometimes all you can do is just the next right thing.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey
Comments: 26
Kudos: 376





	Next Right Thing

**Author's Note:**

> While I’m happy with most of TROS, I feel like Poe didn’t get to grieve properly for Leia. 
> 
> Also it’s Christmas, I’m drunk, and I have a lot of feelings. 
> 
> I started writing this as soon as I watched TROS, I'm finally posting it almost a week later. 
> 
> Title from The Next Right Thing from Frozen II

When he returns, her body is gone.

It shouldn’t feel like a dagger in his side, but it does. He wanted to tell her he did it. They did it.

They won. 

He lets the celebrations overtake his troubled mind. The embrace of Finn and Rey feeling almost baptismal. They had all been through hell and back, they just needed each other.

After the celebrations though, Poe knows there is still work to be done. Sympathizers for the First and Final Order are still out there. They cannot get complacent now, not after what so many died for.

It’s easier to not think of Leia’s death when he works nearly five days straight. Not exactly nursing the blaster wound that Kalonia definitely told him to rest.

Finn is by his side most of the time, only leaving when Rey boards the Falcon saying she has final business she needs to attend to.

He doesn’t even know she’s leaving until he feels the small calloused hands gently squeeze his as he stares over flight plans, lost in his own strategies.

Finn is by her side, a concerned brow etched on his face. She promises them both, this is a good trip, she will return. He assumes Finn’s distress is over her.

He doesn’t hear Rey console Finn that his grief will fade with time and to just be there for him.

Finn brings him food. Begs him to come to their quarters. Tries to distract him with soft touches and tender kisses. Anything to pull him away from command for just a moment. He finds excuses, surrounds himself with D’acy, Kaydel, Beaumont. Those who are just as determined to finish Leia’s plans.

It takes him passing out mid-briefing on activity on Ryloth for anything to remotely change.

He wakes to a med droid scanning him.

“General Dameron, are you conscious?” The gentle feminine voice probes.

He hums an affirmation, feeling like he hasn’t slept in days. Which is fairly accurate.

“I will send word to General Finn, he will be most pleased to see you responsive.” The droid toddles off leaving him to close his eyes and take his own inventory of his body.

He smells it before he actually sees it. 

“Poe,” Finn breathlessly runs into the infirmary.

Rage boils over. It’s easier than the exhaustion he feels.

“Who gave clearance to use bacta on me?”

Finn stops, his eyes hardening.

“You have an infection-“

“That isn’t worth wasting precious resources!”

Finn crosses his arms. Feet planted apart looking down at Poe.

“I’m grounding you,” Finn says with the most authority he can muster.

He scoffs shaking his head, “You can’t do that, I’m-“

“Were. Were general. I’m grounding you until you pull you head out of your ass.”

“You can’t just-“

“Watch me, Poe.”

“I’m the general! Leia put ME in charge.”

“And you put me in charge. Don’t think that Leia wouldn’t do this in a heartbeat.”

“Don’t you dare claim to know what she would have wanted! You don’t know a damn thing about her and what she wanted!” He yells, he free hand gesturing with accusation.

Finn sets his jaw. Silent for a moment.

“Maybe, but I know she loved you. I may have only been a small moment of time in her long life, but it only took me a millisecond after meeting her to know how much she loved and cared for you.”

His breath is heavy, his stomach falling to his feet. The gravity hits him. Leia isn’t coming back.

It’s all past tense. Leia is gone. Just like Luke and Han and god, his parents.

He feels his resolve falling. Rage fading into inevitable exhaustion. 

“Just go.”

Finn’s hard look softens.

“Poe, please.”

“I said you’re dismissed, General.”

Finn opens his mouth but closes it quickly before backing out of the room.

He feels tears brimming but calls the med droid and requests something to make him sleep. He doesn’t want to exist. Just for a few moments.

Kalonia says he slept for several days. He was dehydrated, fighting infection, and extreme exhaustion. He doesn’t fight her when she says she wants him to rest for a few more days under supervision.

He wakes with Rey sitting at his side. She looks older, but more serene. At peace with herself. 

He gets a pang of jealousy.

“Finn is worried about you.”

“The General doesn’t need to worry about me.”

“You are partners.”

“Were.”

Rey is silent. 

“I could heal you, if you want?”

There is no humor in the laugh he responds with.

“You can’t heal this. Nothing but time will, and that’s even a long shot.”

She frowns and rests her hand on top of his. 

“I can help that too. Your feelings?”

“This is my burden to bare. No one else’s.”

Rey rubs her thumb over his knuckles.

“You’re going to lose him if you keep thinking that. He wants to share your pain, Poe. If I could help hold it too, I would.”

“Is your own grief not enough?” It comes out sharper than he intends. “I’m sorry, I didn’t…that came out wrong. You and the General don’t have to worry about me. You both are dealing with enough yourselves. You don’t have to add my lack of coping to the mix.”

She grips his hand.

“You need your rest.”

“I’ve rested enough.”

Rey smiles leaning over to kiss his forehead, a wave of calm rushes over him and his eyes grow heavy.

He wants to fight and protest, but it’s the most rested he’s felt in years.

The next time he wakes his arm is completely healed. He fights between feeling relieved and violated. He settles on the former.

When he finally returns to his quarters, which may or may not have been to the knowledge of Dr. Kalonia, he is alone. He steps into the fresher, only taking a sideways glance at his reflection in the mirror.

He knows he’s due for a shave. Later, he thinks. 

When he finishes dressing is when Finn bursts through the door.

“What the hell are you doing?”

He looks up at the younger man and holds up a sock as his knee cradles his bare foot.

“You can’t just walk out of the med bay without telling someone! Dr. Kalonia didn’t clear you!”

“I’m feeling better, so I left.”

His voice was even and void of emotion, not looking up from putting his socks on.

“You’re unbelievable.”

He stands with a plastered smile.

“I’m sorry to cause so much trouble General, don’t you have official duties other than checking up on me?”

“Cut it out, Poe. I’ve been worried sick about you.”

“I’m a big boy, General. I’m doing just fine.”

He moves to push past Finn but he’s blocked by him.

“We need to talk.”

He tries to push past again with Finn continuing to block him. He pushes back, Finn returns the push until they are both scrapping on the floor.

He gets a good punch in before he’s ultimately pinned by Finn who is breathing hard and looks utterly heartbroken.

“Do you feel better now? Does hitting me make you feel better?” Finn yells at him.

He fights Finn’s strong grip for a moment. Then it happens. He breaks. All the welled up anger and hurt and sorrow breaks free and he’s sobbing on the floor being held down by quite possibly the love of his life.

He doesn’t remember being peeled off the floor and bundled into Finn’s arms. He cries for Leia, Luke, and Han. He cries for Ben. He cries for Snap, Karé, and Jess. He cries for his mom and dad. 

Yes, he has Finn and Rey and Rose and so many beautiful souls that would gladly give their life for his. Despite all this, he still feels utterly alone in a new world he doesn’t quite know.

He feels like a lost relic from the distant past being shoved into a future he doesn’t fit into. 

The thought that has been bubbling through his mind finally comes out in a defeated whisper.

“I should have died with them.”

Finn runs his hand through his curls, rocking him gently. Finn doesn’t tell him no. He doesn’t tell him to change or stop. He lets him scream and yell and cry until his breaths move to soft shudders.

Finn helps him up and dotingly cleans his face with a cloth from the fresher.

“One day, you won’t think that anymore. But it’s okay if you do today, and even maybe tomorrow. I’m happy you’re here, so is Rey and everyone in the Resistance.”

He just shakes his head, his bottom lip trembling.

“I don’t deserve you, any of you.”

“We love you, Poe. I love you. I will never stop telling you that. I love you.”

“I’m sorry I was...am, an ass. I said cruel things…”

Finn cups his face at his chin.

“I am not fragile. Neither is my love for you. Please, let me show you that.”

He looks at him with red eyes above tear stained cheeks.

“I don’t know what to do, Finn. Nothing feels like it will ever be the same again.”

Finn thumbs away the stray rolling tears that fall.

“What would Leia want you to do?”

He looks up at him.

“To keep moving forward,” he whispers.

Finn smiles softly and nods.

“You aren’t an island. You aren’t here alone. This doesn’t fall solely on your shoulders. If we make a mistake, we make it together. If we have a victory, we share it together.”

He is silent, tears still tracking down his cheeks. 

“I’m sorry I’m not the general you..the Resistance...Leia...needed.”

Finn grabs the sides of his face, forcing him to look him in the eyes. 

“First, you are a person before you are a general, pilot, soldier, any of those things. Second, your compassion, your love, your heart is everything that makes you a good general, Poe. When is the last time you’ve had time to grieve, to be sad, to just breathe and be with your thoughts?”

He sniffles a little, using the back of his hand to wipe under his nose. His lack of answer is answer enough. 

“When did you get so extrinsically perceptive?” His voice is rough, but it’s the first genuine joke Finn has heard him crack in weeks. 

“Oh you know I’ve always been brighter than you, flyboy,” Finn wipes away his tears in false patronization.

He chuckles. A soft breathy sound from his chest. It’s the sweetest sound Finn thinks he’s ever heard. 

“I would be intimidated by that fact if I didn’t love you so damn much,” the words are soft and genuine, though Finn knows there would usually be a cocky bravado behind them. Not tonight.

Finn leans in taking his lips into his. He is desperate and clinging to Finn. Finn grips his back in return. 

He pulls back with a gentle breath. He wishes he felt more like himself. He wishes he could be the man that Finn met those few years before. But he’s not and for the first time, he thinks Finn knows that too. Yet, he still is here and he still loves him.

Bracing himself with Finn’s arms, he stands, never breaking eye contact with the younger man. The man he firmly believes owns his heart. The man who despite all of his own misgivings is bound to make him the best man he can possibly be.

“Poe?” Finn asks, holding his arms.

He looks sheepishly at his partner. The stormtrooper turned General of the entire Resistance. The man he loves.

A distant voice echoes in the back of his mind. The soft timbre of Leia Organa.

_You must go on, Poe. Just do the next right thing._

“Do you think Rey is free for dinner?”

It’s a dumb simple question that makes Finn’s heart swell. It’s not a lot but damn, it’s something.

“Yeah, Poe. I’m sure she will be.”

Poe smiles weakly.

_To be with them, that’s the next right thing._

**Author's Note:**

> So in Frozen II, I thought TNRT was the weakest song. I mean I loved the lyrics but I thought it was weird for it to be the last song in the movie.
> 
> After watching TROS, I was like OH THIS IS POE'S SONG. So I have a new found appreciation for it.
> 
> Follow me on tumblr @deanogarbage


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